King Unites with Breakaway Bayit Hayehudi to Make New List

Aryeh King has created a joint list with a breakaway Bayit Hayehudi faction to contest the Jerusalem Municipality elections.

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Adam Ross, 18/09/13 00:13

Aryeh King

Flash 90

The 'United Jerusalem' list has been registered to contest the Jerusalem municipality elections at the eleventh hour with Aryeh King, uniting his 'Seamline Neighborhood' list with a breakaway faction from the Bayit Hayehudi (Jewish Home) religious Zionist party.

Heavy pressure on Aryeh King to unite his 'Seamline Neighborhood' bore fruit hours before the final deadline to make changes to lists ahead of the municipality elections next month.

It was announced Tuesday night that King had agreed to form a joint list with the breakaway Bayit Hayehudi list, which splintered away from the central party list following a bitter legal battle between national and local Bayit Hayehudi offices to decide who would represent the party.

King had headed up the 'Seamline Neighborhoods' list on a mandate to strengthen Jewish communities bordering Arab-populated parts of the city.

Earlier today, Arutz 7 reported that King had faced pressure from the religious Zionist party to join its official list headed by Dov Kalmanovitz. King had received calls from senior religious Zionist rabbis calling on him to join a common list which they said would prevent the scattering and dissipation of religious Zionist votes.

However it was pressure from the breakaway Bayit Hayehudi faction which eventually bore fruit, with King agreeing to take the second spot in a new list called 'United Jerusalem' to be headed by former Deputy Jerusalem Mayor Shmuel Shkedi with Rabbi Yonatan Yosef, the son of Rabbi Yaakov Yosef, filling the fourth spot.

King told Arutz 7: "I hope the new 'United Jerusalem' list will "spell a new horizon for all Jerusalem residents."

Today, Tuesday, marked the closing date by which new lists had to be registered.